


hindsight

by ThaliaClio



Series: interlude [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Apologies, Canon Compliant, Communication, Confessions, Drinking & Talking, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Forgiveness, Missing Scene, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), no actual spoilers for Infinity War, talk like adults my dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 03:57:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14608791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThaliaClio/pseuds/ThaliaClio
Summary: “Our pasts shape us,” he says. “They mold us and then break that mold. What we do with those pieces determines who we really are, though.”--Understanding is not the same as forgiveness, but it might be better.





	hindsight

**Author's Note:**

> Written in a hurry with no editing and no beta.
> 
> Saw IW and loved it but was pissed at the missing pieces.
> 
> Look I love Marvel and I love these characters. But they keep fucking up the characterizations and skipping essential conversations. This is my pitiful attempt at filling those gaps.

Hollow. She feels hollow.

Pietro’s death carved something integral out of her, left her chest empty. Her anger and grief and loss and relief and every emotion she doesn’t have a word for -- they bounce around that empty space, dark and ugly things rebounding inside her.

It’s never quiet in her head, even though she’s stopped listening to the trails of thoughts and feelings of the people that surround her. Her own head is an echo-chamber.

_If you walk out that door, you’re an Avenger._

_Didn’t see that coming?_

All hazy and red, like blood. Like magic.

The Compound is warm, comfortable. Homey, almost.

Steve and Natasha and all the others -- they’re kind, welcoming. There’s clouds of fear and anxiety but also determination and fierceness haloing their heads. It comforts her to know even heroes are afraid.

Vision is… special. He’s not warm, but cool. Like a balm to her feverish mind. They cook most meals together, him learning humanity and her relearning domesticity.

Stark appears and disappears without rhyme or reason, flashing in and out of the Compound like a firework. Everyone knows when he’s arrived -- bright and loud and distracting, siezing the attention of everyone around him. It’s harder to know when he’s left, his presence imprinted on their vision long after he’s gone, half-blinded by the light.

She thinks she hates him, most days. Vision convinces her otherwise.

He talks about him with warmth and admiration, speaking fondly of the memories he retains from the parts of him that were JARVIS. He speaks even more fondly of their trips around the world -- Stark’s attempts at teaching him normal human interaction, Vision says. He smiles when he adds that Stark considers himself many things but a “normal human” could scarcely be one of them.

Even with these kind people, this warm, homey place -- she itches.

She’s never been comfortable before, has barely known kindness.

She goes to the rooftop. It’s cold at night, and the bite of the wind soothes the itch under her skin, quiets the echo-chamber of her chest.

The stars are different in America than in Sokovia, but they are stars all the same.

She notices him a half-second too late, freezing as the door latches behind her, the quiet click echoing across the quiet night.

Stark sits on the edge, his legs dangling over the Compound, kicking into empty space.

“Hey,” he greets her softly, not turning. “I’m not leaving. There’s plenty of roof for two people to brood.”

She sits next to him and doesn’t know why.

He breathes slowly and takes a drink from a bottle. He doesn’t seem bright or distracting now. The fuzzy edges of his mind are cloudy, even to her.

She reaches out and takes the bottle. The burn is unfamiliar but not unwelcome.

“Do you know what people see when you do what you do?” he suddenly asks, quiet voice loud in the silence.

She takes another drink.

“No,” she says as she passes it back to him. She’s almost surprised when he takes it. “I just show them what they fear most.”

“I saw the end of the world,” he says. He spreads his arms, gesturing to -- _everything_ . “Everyone I loved, all the heroes -- dead on a broken rock in space, telling me I could have saved them. I _should_ have saved them. ‘s why I made Ultron.”

He passes the bottle back. She takes it.

“Ultron was not what you made,” she confesses. “He spoke about your program. He called it _inefficient_. Praised the scepter and cursed humanity.”

Stark looks at her for the first time. She can’t meet his eyes, so she doesn’t turn. Takes another drink.

“Why did you help him?”

She shrugs, lost in regret and guilt.

“I… When Pietro and I joined Hydra… we did not know what it was. We knew our country was burning itself alive. They offered us the power to change things, to make it better. To put the fire out and build Sokovia anew.”

He takes the bottle from her hand. She thinks she might have been about to drop it. She wonders it they would have been able to hear it shatter against the ground this high up.

“Do you know who Obadiah Stane is?” he asks.

She shakes her head and watches him take a drink out the corner of her eye.

“He raised me. When my mother was high or my dad was drunk or they were both just _gone_ \-- Obi was the one who I showed my projects to, the one who came to every graduation. The only one who came.” He takes a big drink.

“I found out he had been selling the weapons I made on the black market, to terrorists all over the world. Afghanistan, Syria -- Sokovia. I found this out after he paid some of these terrorists to kill me. They tortured me for three months instead and I burned them all when I escaped.”

She takes the bottle back.

“Our parents used to cook. Every night. No matter how tired they were from work, mama would make bread and papa would make the meat and Pietro and I would make the vegetables. We laughed. When that bomb fell on our house -- it killed our parents instantly. Pietro and I sat there staring at your name for days. No fresh air could get in. By the time we were found there was nothing to smell but blood and piss and shit and rotting meat.”

She hands back the empty bottle. He sets it on the ledge between them with a heavy _clink._

“Our pasts shape us,” he says. “They mold us and then break that mold. What we do with those pieces determines who we really are, though.”

She might have been surprised by the quiet surety with which he speaks the words only a few hours ago.

Now she’s only surprised that he’s willing to share them with her.

“Good luck, Wanda,” he says when he stands.

His footsteps are surprisingly steady. The door quietly latches behind him.

She stays outside for a little longer. When she goes back inside the warmth of the Compound feels more like home. Her skin doesn’t itch.

She’s not surprised when Stark leaves the next morning.

 

\--

 

It’s quiet, after the War.

For a long time it feels like the world is in shock. Like they’ve all decided to stop and process with her. They haven’t, of course. Her shock granted her a blissful ignorance.

Her first clue is —

“I sent him a letter — an apology.” Steve looks away, down — ashamed. “I — it wasn’t a very good apology.”

She looks at him blankly, this man she followed without hesitation and realizes he is flawed.

She realizes -- _I never sent him one at all_.

She reaches out to Vision that night. No letters or phones.

She sends him a message through the ether, reaching out with her mind, and doesn’t know what she’s going to say until she says it.

_I love you. I’m sorry. What I did to you was wrong. What I did to Stark - to your father - was wrong. It’s all gone sideways, and I’m so so sorry. You don’t have to forgive me, but please let me know you heard me._

A day later she gets a summons from T’challa.

The walk to the throne room is quiet. The Dora Milaje are silent beside her, faces still. They look fierce, strong. She admires their surety.

“Tony Stark wants to speak with you,” the King says.

He looks solemn, but not angry. Not frightened. The edges of his mind are -- resigned, almost. Regretful, maybe.

She’s not surprised, exactly, except for she is.

This walk is quiet too, and she is accompanied only by one of the Doras, the General.

“Do you have any advice for me?” Wanda asks softly when they stop at another door.

She doesn’t quite expect an answer, but she desperately wants one.

“The past does not dictate our future, but it changes who we are,” she finally says, voice steady and wise.

The General — Okoye, she remembers, turns to meet her eyes now. “Do not linger on that which has happened, but do not ignore it.”

The words echo advice half-remembered, shared on a rooftop a lifetime away.

Wanda just nods.

This door closes much more loudly than the last.

“You put him through seven floors.”

Tony Stark is a man she’s known for all her life and understood for none of it, even if she once thought she did.

He stands in the center of the room, a stunning ballroom fit for the palace it resides in, like he owns it, like it’s commonplace.

She feels small and out of place and wishes there were more windows.

“Seven floors because a retired spy _broke into your house_ and told you _Captain America_ needed you. And you claim to love him.”

Wanda closes her eyes and breathes. She opens them when she hears Stark sigh, heavy and painful sounding.

She can’t help it, she moves closer, actually looks at him without preconception, maybe for the first time. That night a lifetime ago she had barely looked at him at all.

He’s pinching his nose between his thumb and forefinger, and there’s a dark thick bruise on his forehead and eye. His arm is clutched close to his chest, bracing it almost. He looks tired and in pain.

When he opens his eyes he doesn’t look surprised that she’s much closer. He looks sad.

“Why would you do that to him?”

It’s not about him, of course it’s not. Stark doesn’t care for the wrongs she’s done to him. She should have expected as much.

The two of them have acknowledged one another before, in another lifetime.

She remembers the way he looked at her that night -- understanding, if not forgiveness. She didn’t know if she deserved it from him. He certainly didn’t want it from her.

Now she knows she doesn’t deserve it, but desperately wants it.

“I... what I can do. What it does to people —“ she shakes her head. Those aren’t the right words.

“I shouldn’t have done that to him. He didn’t deserve it. It was wrong. I was afraid, and I betrayed a love I never thought I’d have for a trust I barely believed I earned.”

She stops, half-wishing for him to interrupt her but knowing that if he did she’d never finish speaking.

“Clint, Steve — they were the first to see me as myself aside from Pietro. I think one day Vision could see me as more than I am. I want to be more than I am. Please, tell him that.”

Stark looks at her, expression empty. Unreadable.

Finally —

“There were no good choices here.”

He sighs, looks away. She suddenly realizes he’s over 50, and certainly never expected to live that long. “I’ll tell him what you said.”

She can’t say anything else, head empty and throat dry, and just nods.

“Wanda?” he says, back facing her as he leaves.

She looks up and barely catches his glance.

“Be careful with him.”

**Author's Note:**

> kudos, reviews, what have you — tell me what it fucked up and what you kind of liked. 
> 
> thanks for reading, my dudes.


End file.
